Tag: child locator

One of the best devices on the market right now for child tracking is the Amber Alert GPS. It is a small GPS tracking device than can provide real time updates on your child’s location and help you answer that all important question: where is my child?

With the Amber Alert GPS you get a very powerful GPS tracking device in a nice, compact package. Coming in at 1.77″ x 1.68″ x .78″ this is one of the smaller tracking devices on the market. You can easily conceal this in your child’s pocket, coat, or backpack without it being annoying to the child or easily detectable by someone seeking to do your child harm.

Even though the device is small, it does not loose any of the functionality that parents are going to be looking for in a safety GPS for their child. The position information is accurate and the number of ways that a parent can access this information is impressive. The following are all ways that parents can be alerted about the position of their child:

The call or text the Amber Alert GPS to ask for a position update. If you have a web enabled phone you can see their position on a map right on your phone.

View a map of their location online in real time whenever you want to get an update.

If your child presses their SOS button you messages can be sent out to 5 phone numbers or emails, meaning that you and your spouse can be notified of the SOS on your phones and your email – this is a great feature for working parents who have to juggle different phone and email accounts.

If your child goes outside a predetermined GeoFence then you will be alerted of this movement via text message or email.

Be notified if your child starts moving faster than a predetermined speed that you set up. This can be good for child safety, but is particularly helpful in tracking teen drivers and monitoring their driving behavior.

And finally, if the temperature exceeds or drops below a certain threshold there is also an alert that is sent out to you. This alert can be modified and is useful for ensuring that your child is safe and comfortable.

In addition to all the location feature there are two additional features worth mentioning. The first is the SOS button. This button, as you might have implied from the bullet points above, will send out a message containing your child’s location when they press this button. These messages will continue to appear every 5 minutes, giving you a fresh update of your child’s location. This is obviously huge. If your child had to press the button because they were being taken by a stranger then having their position delivered to you every 5 minutes will help you and the police locate your child extremely quickly. Even if they are not taken, but only injured or scared, it is really nice to be able to get to them quickly if they are on the move without having to call the device to see where they are at.

The second important feature is something that the Amber Alert folks call “monitoring.” This is a feature controlled by the parent that lets them listen in on what is going on around the child. Again, this is a huge feature when something is going down with your child and they have pressed the SOS button. If they are under attack you can hear the voice of the attacker or you can hear that your child is handling the situation appropriately and getting the help that they need. Monitoring equips you with the knowledge that you need to make an informed decision about your child’s safety.

With all these positives about this child tracking device we have to talk about some of the negatives associated with it as well. The first is a fairly short battery life. This device can hold a charge between 18 and 24 hours. While this is plenty of time in most circumstance, it can be a hassle to switch batteries every day to ensure your child has full power for the next time they are separated from you.

But to be honest, this power issue is entirely expected. When you have a device that is as small and concealable as the Amber Alert GPS and allows you to get real time tracking information you are pretty much guaranteed that the battery life is going to be relatively brief. The technology just isn’t there right now.

If you decide to purchase the Amber Alert GPS you are going to be getting one of the best products on the market for child tracking. The device is not cheap, but you really do get a lot for the money that you pay.

GPS tracking watches combine the power of GPS tracking technology with the usefulness of personal time pieces. They are small, highly portable, and extremely useful in several different applications. In many cases, these watches can be a bit bulky – but they are still usually lightweight and agile. Some of the latest devices produced by Garmin are the same size as a “normal” sport or fitness watch, even with the GPS device built in.

When you step back and get the big picture about GPS tracking watches you will find the most GPS watches fall within one of two main categories: kids watches and fitness watches.

GPS tracking watches for kids are all about one thing: safety. These devices are meant to connect parents to their children in such a way that parents are continually aware of their child’s location and in the unlikely event of an abduction or kidnapping the parent will have enough information to locate their child quickly with the help of the police or other law enforcement agency.

These devices are extremely difficult to find, but there are some available at online retailers. Brickhouse Security, as an example, does have a GPS tracking watch designed for kids that is featured in the picture to the left. This little device is extremely powerful – not only does it provide very precise location information, but it also has a distress Alarm and a built-in cellular speakerphone that will allow your child to contact you, the police, or emergency personnel if the need ever arose.

Not many companies have created such fine watches. One reason why these devices are so difficult to come by is that for them to work effectively at making the GPS information available to parents is that they must find a way to transmit the signal out to a data processing center. The watch must be a data pusher rather than just a data logger (like fitness GPS tracking watches).

Turning a watch into a data pusher is no small feat. The best devices for this are GPS tracking cell phones – mainly because they already have cell phone technology built in and can leverage it to transmit position information to a central processing station (the does use cell phone technology in their wrist watch to push location data out). What would a cell phone look like if it was attached to your wrist? Pretty bulky, my friend. Pretty bulky.

So the technological problem of turning a watch into a cellphone-like device is one major hurdle that GPS manufacturers have had to overcome; and they have done so with very limited success.

Another main reason why GPS tracking watches for kids have not taken off and become extremely popular is that they suffer from some serious detection flaws. What I am talking about here is not GPS signal detection, but bad man detection.

Will someone taking your child really ignore the bulky device on their wrist? Will the locking mechanism really keep the watch from being removed? Won’t someone evil enough to steal a child also be evil enough to remove a hand to remove the watch that will get them caught?

It is nearly impossible for a child to hide the watch, especially if it is locked on to their wrist. This creates some serious safety issues and can essentially negate any benefit that GPS tracking might provide in this terrible situation.

These are the two main issues with kids GPS watches. These issues can be solved by creating smaller, “normal” looking devices that still have all the power of GPS tracking and a cell phone.

Fitness is a huge industry in the United States where billions of dollars are spent annually on fitness equipment, clothing, gym memberships, and fitness accessories. One small portion of this very big pie are GPS tracking watches.

In order to get a piece of this pie, several major players have arisen in the GPS watch market. There is one GPS manufacturer that has taken their product and converted it into GPS tracking watches as well as a few watch companies that have incorporated GPS in their design. The major players are Garmin, Suunto, Timex, and Polar.

There are two major methods of translating GPS tracking into fitness watched: integrating the GPS directly into the watch or using a GPS pod to collect that location data.

Garmin and Suunto have watch models that integrate the GPS receiver directly into the watch. The most recent Garmin model is the GARMIN Forerunner 405 Black GPS Enabled Sports Watch/ HRM. This is a fully integrated GPS watch that also sports a heart rate monitor (HRM). Many reviews of this device have been particularly favorable as it has a sleek, “normal” design that actually looks like a wrist watch might (unlike some of the previous Garmin Forerunner models). It is relatively lightweight at 2.1 ounces, making it easy to use during a long run or other outdoor activity.

The heart rate monitor is another great benefit to using a fitness GPS tracking watch like the Garmin Forerunner 405. This small add on will give you immediate feedback on how hard your body is working and if you are getting a good workout while you are on your run. But the benefit doesn’t end there. Once you are home you will be able to sit down in front of your computer and get a bird’s eye view of your workout, giving you a better understanding of what you need to work on to continue to improve your fitness level.

The other way that companies have made GPS available or fitness watches is via a GPS pod that you attach to your shoe or waist. These devices then capture the GPS signal and transmit it up to the watch which then takes the information and stores and displays it to you, the user. Many of these watches also come with a heart rate monitor.

Here is a robust list of fitness GPS tracking watches found at Amazon.com divided up by their brand:

Buy A GPS Tracking Watch

Buying a GPS tracking watch is certainly not a necessary purchase – not for child safety nor for physical fitness. However, these devices can be extremely fun and enjoyable if you want to know more precise information about your fitness routine or you feel a need to know your child’s location on demand. Make sure you consider all your options carefully before buying a GPS tracking watch.

Check out one of the smallest and most powerful GPS trackers for children: AmberAlert GPS

If you have ever found yourself wishing that you knew at any moment where your child was with an accuracy of up to 3 meters, then GPS tracking for kids might be something that you want to take a look at. GPS has been around since the 80s when it was released for public use (before the Global Positioning Satellite system had been reserved solely for the military), but has only recently been made available for use by private persons for the tracking of the people closest to them – their children.

Before GPS tracking devices were simply too bulky to be of much use on a child – they were either too heavy to be safely and continuously carried, too large to be of much use for covert, safety oriented tracking, or they were too inaccurate to be of much help to consumers or their kids. All this has changed in the last 5-10 years as technology has become increasingly smaller and more efficient.

Let me explain this with a similar bit of technological breakthrough that we have had in the same amount of time – namely that of computer storage. 10 years ago it would have a pipe dream to have a desktop computer with 160 GB of storage space – now iPods come with that much memory. In the same way that computer technology in general has advanced so rapidly, GPS tracking technology has made leaps and bounds as well – becoming increasingly smaller, more power, more efficient, and more accurate.

All of these changes have been good for parents looking to keep tabs on their children with a technological solution. But this begs the question, why should any child be tracked with GPS?

Reasons to Choose GPS Tracking For Kids

As far as I can tell, there are three main reasons to use GPS tracking for your kids: safety concerns, behavior problems, and paranoia.

Safety is probably the main reason most parents are going to want to use GPS to keep tabs on their children. They want something that will quickly and accurately locate their child at a moments notice. Is the child supposed to be at home but hasn’t been heard from in over an hour? Are they supposed to be at Tim’s house to hang out after school and do some homework but a call to Tim’s parents reveals that your child never arrived? Do you worry that something could happen to your child as they wait for you after baseball practice in the park by the canyon? If any of these situations have happened to you then you know that you wish there was some way to find out where you child is right away. GPS tracking for kids can provide accurate and reliable information for you in a way that is actionable and useful.

Take a moment and imagine that your child did not come home on time like you were expecting, fear is gripping you as you wait by the window for their arrival. It could be that they simply hung around too long after school playing tether ball with their friends or took too long in the park as they cut across it on their way home. You want to find out where your daughter is right now. You run to your computer and you log in to your child’s GPS tracking watch provider to get a look at their position. Your heart breathes a sigh of relief as you see that they are on their way home traveling at 2 mph about 2 blocks from home – they must have lingered too long at the park.

Now imagine that same situation where you find that your child is traveling 65 mph on a major highway heading away from home? You’d dial 911 in an instant and you could be able to give the police some seriously useful information that would likely lead to the recovery of your child – all thanks to a GPS tracking device in your child’s backpack.

Another important reason to use GPS tracking for kids in some circumstance is behavioral problems or mental disabilities. A child that is prone to wander because they suffer from some sort of behavioral or mental disorder is someone that you want to find and find quickly. Short trips to the supermarket, or family vacations, or even simple trips to the park can become living nightmares as you search frantically for the child that has wandered off and slipped out of your site. Child locators, a certain type of GPS tracking device, work great in this situation where quick feedback without the use of computer is necessary. They are not always the best solution for families since they do have some issues and cell phones are becoming internet capable in a big way – making the obstacle of internet access to use location information much smaller.

And the final reason to get a GPS device to track your child is because you are paranoid and need to find someway to calm your own fears just a little bit. The fact is that the vast majority of children have no need for GPS tracking. They will go through their lives and never need the safety of always having their location just a moment away from being known by their parent. Running a little late, being alone at a park after baseball practice, and playing hooky with a friend instead of being where they are supposed to be are all normal activities for kids to be doing at some point in their life. You probably did the same thing and your parents didn’t need a GPS device to keep tabs on you.

However, if you are person who works in Mexico City or some other place that routinely has kidnappings then it might be a good idea to get a GPS tracking device for your children so that when Man on Fire happens to you and your family, your Denzel Washington will be able to kick the crap out of the bad kidnappers who stole your Dakota Fanning.

Now that we have established three legitimate reasons to go out and purchase some sort of GPS tracking device for your child, it begs the question, “What devices can I get that will provide GPS tracking for kids?”

Device That Use GPS Tracking For Kids

There are three main devices that you are going to find around the web and in stores that will assist you in keeping tabs on your child: gps tracking watches, covert GPS trackers, and kids GPS phones.

GPS tracking watches are a small, reliable, and kid friendly option for parents seeking to use GPS tracking with their children. These devices are exactly what their name sounds like – they are a GPS tracking device that fits on the wrist of your child. There are a couple of different brands available, but none of them are household names (certainly not Garmin, TomTom, or Magellan if that is what you were hoping for – though Garmin does offer a fitness GPS watch). Some of the watches look a little funky, but in general they do provide you with what you are expecting.

In general, a GPS watch for kids is going to look a little bulky on their wrist, have some extravagantly ugly colors, and will probably throw up warning signals to any would be villain to get rid of the watch ASAP. These devices are probably not as easy at GPS phones to get your child to use, but being attached at the wrist may make them less likely to be randomly lost.

The next option for parents to consider is covert GPS tracking for kids. Again, there are a variety of different implementations to consider when going the covert route. Do I go with a GPS in the shoe, teddy bear, coat, or backpack? Do I go with a build in device or do I find something that I sew or attach myself? How you answer these questions will determine what product you purchase.

The amount of information that you are going to get with a more covert approach to tracking is the same as what you would find with a a tracking watch, but the idea is that these covert trackers will escape detection for a very significant period of time. If the device is hidden well enough in a “necessary” piece of equipment or apparel then you are almost certain that you will be able to find your child in any and all circumstances.

And finally, we have kids GPS phones. These are kids cell phones that have integrated GPS technology so that they can get an accurate read on the phones position under almost any circumstance provided that the phone is on.

This combination of cell phone and GPS technology is very powerful. A GPS signal will be able to give position information if the phone cannot use cell towers to establish a location, and cell towers can establish a location when a direct line of site with the sky has been obstructed by a car trunk, cement wall, or mound of dirt. The cell phones power is in its usability in almost every circumstance.

This power is also its greatest weakness when considering it as a GPS tracking device for kids. Everyone and there mother knows that cell phones can be used to communicate position information to the authorities. This means that it is often the first thing to go if your child is in an emergency situation. Kids GPS cell phones must be kept quiet and used very wisely by your child if it is to be effective at recovering them from something horrible.

In most normal conditions, kids GPS phones are great because they also let you talk directly with your child. If they are late coming home, simply call them and ask them where they are – if what they tell you is different from what you computer is saying then you can deal with your child as you see fit. The power to do so is now in your hands.

A Final Word On GPS Tracking For Kids

One thing that I haven’t mentioned yet but is very pertinent to our discussion here is the GPS tracking for kids costs money. You are going to have to go in up front for a tracking device (whether it is a GPS tracking watch, covert GPS tracking device, or a kids GPS phone) and you are probably going to be hit with a reoccurring service charge every month to be able to use the tracking capability on the device. This can add up to big money for a family already strapped for cash.

My advice is to think very carefully about using GPS tracking for kids and to only use it if it makes real sense given your family’s unique set of circumstances.

Child locators are devices that contain GPS or radio technology that can communicate a child’s location to their parent. Generally speaking, devices that work over short distances use radio technology while devices that work over long distances make use of GPS. The short range tracking devices often have a receiver that will provide the parent with instant feedback on their child’s location while the longer range devices often require some sort of interface to access the GPS tracking information.

There are obvious pros and cons to each device type that parents should consider before deciding which one will best fit their child’s needs.

Short Range Child Locators

Short range child locators are excellent because they provide instant feedback for parents. The device to the right is from Brickhouse Security, the company featured in a Duracell commercial found on cable television. This child tracker provides parents holding the unit in the center with the general direction and distance of their son or daughter who is equipped with the device pictured on the left.

These devices can be great for use at parks or other very public, very crowded locations where kids of all ages can easily get lost in the mass of people. All it takes is a split second for you to get distracted and your child to step through a crowd and be out of view. Most times children are simply looking at something interesting, but the feeling in your chest is one of complete panic.

Short range child locators are designed specifically to help parents find their children in this type of circumstance. The child is within a few hundred feet of the parent, they are in some way obstructed from view by terrain or crowds, and the chances of being separated from your child for a long period of time is relatively low – all of which lends itself to quick location information that points you in the right direction immediately.

These types of child locators do have some drawbacks. Most of these kid tracking devices are limited in range. According to the specifications on the child locator mentioned above provided by BrickHouse Security, the child tracking device is only effective up to ranges of 600 feet outdoors and 250 indoors. While this is more than sufficient for a wandering child who slips out of sight momentarily, it is frighteningly insufficient for tracking your child while you are at work or while they are at a friends house.

Another potential drawback is the fact that you need to keep the monitor with you at all times if you want to check in with your kid’s location. This probably will not bother too many parents, but you already have a camera, a phone, keys, a wallet, a purse, etc. carrying an extra thing around can be a little inconvenient.

When it comes down to it though short range child locators do a great job at giving concerned parents a quick and accurate vector on their child’s location.

Long Range Child Locators

When you think of a long range child locator it is best to think of GPS. This is not always the case (see kids GPS phones), but in these instances the child locator acts just like it had GPS technology in it in the sense that you can estimate the location of your son or daughter to within a few meters.

Long range child locators provide exactly what you might expect from them – the ability to track your kid from one end of town to the next. By using GPS or cell phone technology these devices provide very accurate and very useful information to parents such as the direction of your child. They can also allow parents to track a teen while driving (this is good for making sure the teen’s driving habits are good and that they don’t speed). This could be the key in determining if your child is as safe as you would want them to be.

These type of locators generally work the following way –

The GPS unit receives signals from the Global Positioning Satellites orbit the sky over head

The device then takes that information and “pushes” it out via radio signals to a central processing station (this is why these devices are called data pushers)

The central processing station interprets this data and makes it available to you through some sort of application – usually an online interface (a website where you can get the information)

The benefit to this type of system is that you can access the information anywhere you have access to the internet. Your home, office, local library, a coffee shop, or any place you can get cell reception if you have a cell phone with internet access can provide you information on your child’s location.

This is particularly powerful in those emergency situations that no parent ever wants to find themselves in. If something terrible were to happened at your kid’s school, or a natural disaster strike while your child is at a friends house, or your teen doesn’t show up to the house at curfew all you would need to do is get to a internet enable device and you could see exactly where they are in the time it takes to get on the internet. In some cases, that lightening quick information could be the difference between life and death.

It is also one of the biggest drawbacks of these long range devices.

Situations where the short range child locators flourish are terribly impractical for the longer range counterparts. A kids GPS cell phone or even a GPS kids watch simply will not do at a crowded amusement park if you have to go back to the hotel room to get on the internet. You want to find your child and you want to find them now.

It seems hard to imagine loosing sight of your child in a crowded place and taking out your cell phone, getting on the internet, entering your login credentials for your child locator subscription, finding out that your child is somewhere at Disneyland, trying to find out exactly where at Disneyland they are, and then heading off in that direction to hope to find them. What you need in that instance is to know exactly which direction to start looking right away.

Child Locators in Summary

As you can see, there are different uses for and different benefits received from child locator devices. Here is a quick reference chart of the various pros and cons associated with each type of device:

Pros

Cons

Short Range Child Locator

Great for public, open spaces

Instant feedback on child’s location

One time purchase fee

Limited Range

Another device to carry around

Most require batteries

Long Range Child Locator

Excellent for long range, from a distance tracking

Tracking information accessible from anywhere with an internet connection

Monthly fee in the range of a cell phone subscription

Inefficient for quick, short range information

It is important to note that one device isn’t necessarily better than the other – it all depends on the way you want to use the locator. In some family circumstances, a long range, GPS device is going to best fit the needs of parent and child. In others the shorter range child locator is going to be what is best for everyone.

In the end, only you can make the decision on what type of chid locator works best for your family.

We all know cell phones are here to stay. You can’t walk 10 feet in any public place without seeing some parent, child, or teen talking on their cell phone. You can even go to ‘poor’ countries and find that many people have access to this type of wireless communication. But have you ever heard of a kids GPS phone that is designed specifically to help parents keep tabs on their children?

A few years ago, cellular phone companies found out that busy parents needed a solution to their business problem. With the pressures of work and the need to get things done around the house, get kids to their activities, make dinner, and be sure that they have money for their future parents realized that they weren’t giving their children the time that they deserved. As a result of this they developed types of cell phones that have been labeled ‘kid phones’ for the functionality made specific for children of a young age.

These phones generally have certain features that make them particularly useful for small children. One of them is that they often have the regular number pad removed. This is replaced by a speed dial pad. This helps your child on two levels:

They do not have to memorize telephone numbers at all. While most children are very good at memorization as early as the age of 4, so you are not having them memorize your cell phone number because they are not able too. But in the heat of an emergency a child’s brain might not be able to hand the recalling the seven digits that make up your phone number. By reducing it to a simple speed dial you are giving your child’s mind the ability to remember that “One equals Mommy” or that “The red button equals the police man.”

By keeping your child’s phone to the simple speed dial options you reduce the risk of them using the cellular device for non-necessary reasons. You don’t your child to have access to all the internet, text messaging, and camera features that a regular cell phone might have. They simply don’t need all of that. You want them to be able to give you call in case of an emergency or if they need to be picked up from school. That is all.

The speed dial feature on kids phone seems to be the focal point of most the phone design. The screens are often just big enough to display who you are calling and if the call is connecting or not. Then there is the are the ‘send’ and ‘end’ buttons. These are generally large and obvious for your child.

For many years these types of devices have been being utilized by parents to help ‘keep in touch’ with their children while parents go about their busy lives. During this same period of time, we have also seen an explosion in GPS technology in consumer electronics. The trickle down effect has finally made its way into cell phones and specifically created a new class of phone: the kids GPS phone.

Understanding Kids GPS Phones

Cell phones and GPS technology are very similar in nature. With GPS, a signal containing relevant position information is transmitted from a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. As more and more signals reach a GPS receiver, the computer inside the device is able to calculate the position of the receiver using the information provided by the satellites and a mathematical process called trilateration. (For more information see our article on how GPS tracking watches work.)

Cell phones are very similar. They receive signals from cell towers that often dot the urban landscape in a type honeycomb pattern. These signals tell the cell phone that they are in service, how strong that cellular service is (i.e. how many ‘bars’ do you have?), and whether or not you are accepting calls at the moment (is the phone on or off?). When you talk with your phone, it is really acting like a very complex walkie-talkie where what you hear is being transmitted to you on one channel while what you say is being broadcast over another channel.

One interesting side effect that this has is that phones can be used as a tracking device even if they don’t have GPS enabled. This is because the cell towers can measure how long it takes to get a response back from your cell phone between the different towers in your area. Once it has this information, it can use it in conjunction with the known position of all the cell towers to find your general location. Now this is probably not as accurate as a GPS phone, but it is still pretty accurate.

This similarity between the workings of GPS and cell phones made them obvious candidates for integration into a single device: thus the GPS phone was born. The most common application of this type of phone is found in the ubiquitously necessary navigation system. Turn by turn direction and road maps seem to be all the rave these days and cell phone companies saw a market that they wanted to tap into. This was definitely the first use of GPS in cell phones. (Though it is important to note that not all phones with navigation capabilities have GPS enabled on them – the simply might have it available because of the location information available from cell towers.)

Eventually some executive or engineer decided to implement the GPS feature on the kids phones that they were already developing. Perhaps it could be a good way to upsell some parents and get them to subscribe to more services while offering them an improved experience and more functionality. Either way, parents might want it and cell phone providers were going to give them kids GPS phones.

These devices take advantage of both the cell phone and GPS technology that their small plastic cases contain. Unlike a kids GPS tracking watch, kids GPS phones are able to penetrate areas that can often be hidden from the watchful eye of the Global Positioning Satellites orbiting overhead. These areas often have some type of obstructed view of the sky overhead – such as a heavily wooded area or building – but can have access to a cell signal. While the location information is significantly less accurate when based on information provided from the cell portion of the kids GPS cell phone, it is still better than nothing all.

Another key feature of these GPS devices is that they are also cell phones. While some GPS watches for children also have this capability as well, many child locators do not. There is something powerful in knowing that you can reach out and call your child whenever you are concerned about their whereabouts or safety. It is also nice to know that they can turn around and call you as well if ever they are worried or concerned. You are never more than a phone call away.

Plans and prices for the kids GPS cell phone are fairly reasonable if you are serious about having this type of capability in something that you already have your child using anyway. You probably will not have to use it very often (most parents never need to), but if you feel like it will give you some peace of mind and supplement the safety of your family there is certainly some quality providers out there who can provide a kids GPS phone to meet your needs.

Parents also have the option of leveraging current cell phones and turning them into tracking devices for free. Just download one of the many cell phone trackers out on the market and you can instantly turn a normal cell phone into a power tracking device. Just be sure that you have the data plan to cover it since this type of activity can be data heavy. But if you are already paying for a data plan why not make the most of it and install a tracker on your kids cell phone?